Media Release – Senator Barnaby Joyce, 21 November 2011:
Well I have just watched my nation’s Parliament at work. Not in the Cabinet or the Chamber but in the Senate Courtyard rolling press conferences.
The result of the Mining Resource Rent Tax vote was that it was off because of some stumbling Windsor position on CSG when in reality, as he always does, he was going to rollover for Labor so as expected he had a chat then he changed his mind and it was back on, then Oakeshott said that he was sort of where Windsor was with something random about the Henry Tax Review, then Wilkie said it was on but different and then Bob Brown said it was off if Wilkie’s different position was on.
Yes we can run a country like this, this is totally politically sane. After another two years of this chaos the best we will be able to say about our government is that it is very entertaining.
Very similar to: What is your surgeon like? Well there are a fair few of them and they argue a lot about what they are going to cut off but they are very, very entertaining.
Barnaby Is Right 
Parliament at work? i assure you they don’t know the meaning of the word.
Indeed. Though out of interest, I have it on good authority that many do a lot of work … playing political “games”. Not on (eg) carefully perusing each of the laws they pass.
This is interesting – http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-21/treasuries-rise-as-possible-budget-committee-failure-spurs-refuge-demand.htm
The first part is claiming that since the US government can’t agree on a budget, US government debt is rising in price due to the ‘safety concerns’ of investors. Absolute bullshit. US Treasuries are rising in price because ‘investors’ know damn well the Fed will buy them, they don’t give a damn about safety. The balance sheet of the Fed is completely rotten anyway & nobody cares. The biggest Ponzi scheme in the history of the world.
We are living in truly amazing times.
Yes, I saw a piece about this earlier today (can’t recall where), and had precisely the same thoughts.
Here’s another – http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-21/treasuries-rising-most-since-2008-as-budget-paralysis-seen-1-.html#
This situation is outrageous. The UK is the same, yields on Gilts are falling, a result of the persistant central bank monetisation of government debt, yet out of the 275 billion pound balance sheet of the Bank of England, 250 billion pounds is classified under the dubious title of ‘other assets’, which is almost certainly the worthless financial claims of the ‘City’.
The balance sheet of the ‘Old Lady’ stinks to high heaven, it’s gone off, completely spoiled, yet fools still trade her credit as if it’s money.
Crazy & I can’t see it lasting, unless interest rates increase their rate of falling but even then there is a limit, i —-> 0
Correct. My attention is always immediately drawn to titles like “Other” in financial statements. Indeed, they’re the first thing I look for.
And the situation continues to deteriorate in Egypt – http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-20/egypt-warns-protesters-to-be-responsible-after-cairo-clashes-injure-676.html#
Imagine the weapons moving from Libya into Egypt now, along a 1000km border. Things are going from bad to worse.
And the AUD is currently taking a hammering, money market yields have been volatile but ‘benchmark’ rates moving down. Expect the RBA to slash again soon. They’re going to zero here too.
Agreed.
Woohoo! I can’t afford my mortgage (who can?), but just for a few months as 5 years of zero interest rates under the infinite wisdom of Greenspan got the world into this mess.
And yet another – http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-21/australia-10-year-government-bond-yield-drops-to-lowest-since-january-2009.html#
Unfortunately they don’t give an indication of the price rise per $1000 of face value but the profits are so healthy everybody is gunning for some government bond action.